With less than a week before his term expires, President Biden signed an Executive Order directed the Departments of Defense and Energy to identify federal sites that could be used for artificial intelligence (AI) data centers and clean power facilities.
The Executive Order requires the departments to select sites where the private sector can build AI data centers and clean power facilities based on those sites’ accessibility to high-capacity transmission infrastructure. The sites will also be chosen on the basis that there is no disruption to neighboring communities or the wider environment. The Executive Order added that competitive solicitations for proposals to lease these sites for building, owning, and operating large-scale AI infrastructure will be conducted “all at private expense.”
The departments are also being tasked with facilitating interconnection to the electric grid with the new data centers while advancing transmission development around the federal sites. The developers selected to build the new data centers will be required to pay all costs of building and operating AI infrastructure while ensuring their developments do not raise electricity prices for consumers. The Executive Order also required developers adhere to “high labor standards, promoting positive labor-management relations, and paying workers prevailing wages” – although it stopped short of demanding union workforces.
